effecting change.

Russian SVR HQ (old KGB) doubles in size

These additions appear to have increased the SVR headquarters’ floor space by a factor of two or more. Moreover, the nearby parking capacity at the complex appears to have quadrupled. There is no information available about what may have prompted the sudden building expansion at the SVR complex, nor whether it reflects drastic changes in the organizational structure, budget or mission of the agency.

Recent satellite images reveal that the headquarters of the Russian Federation’s external intelligence agency has doubled, and possibly tripled, in size in the past nine years. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, known as SVR, is one of the successor agencies of the Soviet-era KGB.

During the Soviet times, the present-day SVR was known as the First Chief Directorate or First Main Directorate of the KGB. Despite its name change, however, its mission remains the same, namely to collect secrets from targets outside the Russian Federation — often through the use of espionage — and to disseminate intelligence to the president.

In the Soviet days, along with most of the KGB, the First Chief Directorate was headquartered in the imposing Lubyanka building, which is located in Moscow’s Meshchansky District. But in the early 1970s, the entire First Chief Directorate began a decade-long process of moving to a new, state-of-the-art complex in the southern suburbs of the Russian capital. The complex, which is located in Yasenevo, today houses the entire apparatus of the SVR, including its espionage wing, and is informally known as les (the forest) or kontora (the office).

Until 2007, the SVR’s Yasenevo headquarters consisted of a large Y-shaped office building that adjoins an imposing 21-story skyscraper, which is visible for several miles around. But an open-source collection of recent satellite images shows that the top-secret complex has doubled —and possibly tripled— in size in the past decade.

The images clearly show that at least three more large buildings have been erected alongside the landmark skyscraper and the adjoining Y-shaped office block. These additions appear to have increased the SVR headquarters’ floor space by a factor of two or more. Moreover, the nearby parking capacity at the complex appears to have quadrupled.

There is no information available about what may have prompted the sudden building expansion at the SVR complex, nor whether it reflects drastic changes in the organizational structure, budget or mission of the agency.